Using one piece of dislodged metal between the strut supports of the stairwell - Lord Shadowscythe used his weight as best he could in the zero gravity of the bridge to attempt to pull the two pieces apart and rescue the unknown woman from her fate.

Bleeding to death at what used to be the beating heart of one of Scythia's greatest command and control vessels - so far from home with no hope of return.

He ran through the streams of thought in his mind - first he would have to rescue this woman . . . then find a pathway to the ships hangar bays with no lighting or computer support to warn of decompression or worse . . . boarders on the ship . . . then hope the ship was carrying one of the now obselete Black Diamond gunboats and somehow manage to escape from the listing wreckage of the Mantorok without being spotted and blasted to atoms . . . and then an un-guided FTL jump into what could be enemy territory . . .

He had to focus on the here and now.

Forcing his weight "upwards" he managed to finally shift, and then snap the bolts holding the metal sheet in place - and it floated upwards towards the cieling, followed by trails of fresh, red blood.

The woman groaned, slipping in and out of conciousness.

"Stay with me, I am going to get you out of here . . . " Lord Shadowscythe repeated to the woman, as much for his own need as hers.

High Admiral Timken stood atop the bridge of the Indominatable, the flagship of the Britannian sector fleet that had been hastily assembled to wipe the triatorous Scythians out in this battle, and if the Immortals had anything to do with it - the rest of the galaxy.

The few Scythian vessels that had survived the initial assault had put up a fight - they had assembled in a globe formation around thier most damaged ships - forming thier shields and weapons fire into a ball of compressed fury - while attempting to rescue as many survivors off of thier command and control vessels as possible . . .

Heavy lasers blared hot death across the visible colour spectrum, anti-matter projectors spread fire and death in every direction.

They where out-numbered and out-gunned . . . and surrounded in every direction.

Timken at least gave them a warriors send-off, what better way to die than by holding the line?

Every gun in the Britannian fleet fired at the same time - Cavorite beams and heavy bore cannons unleashed a wall of fire that was joined by the Immortal Heavy plasma and ION cannon fire from every direction.

The Scythian ships - a handfull at most, perhaps a dozen - had held the line for an entire minute before thier shields gave way - and their ships where turned into gutted remains . . .

Now only blood, dust and shattered bones of the Scythian fleet remained . . . in the middle was the prize Timken saught - the "Mantorok" A Scythian Emperor Class Super-Battleship and the leader of this fleet . . . he would take the salvage and return it to Britannian space as the figurehead of this battle . . . before ripping it apart for all of its advanced systems and technology, learning the Scythians secrets and applying them to the entire Britannian fleet and bring thier hasty modernisation to its fruition.

And then He would be Sector Governer of a new, shining Britannian Empire - the newest sector, His newest sector would use the Scythians Homeworld as his own - the ultimate insult for thier acts of war . . . and the Immortals could move on to subjucate and conquer as they saw fit.

"High Admiral Timkin!" A deck hand got his attention from one of the observation deck below.

"Yes?" He turned his head to face the un-named man below.

"We are detecting a mass FTL event at the planets far equatoral point. Its Scythian."

"Re-enforcements this late in the battle? They have no hope - order all ships to close and fire at will."

Timken froze for a moment . . . 5 thousand vessels was enough to end this battle three times over in the Scythian's favour . . . for them to simply hold thier positions was unknown, even for them . . . something ate at the back of his mind, a gut feeling that magnified itself a dozen times over.

"My liege, the fleet has exited FTL - we have completed our render scans - the fleets in orbit consist of both Immortal and Britannian vessels around the remains of the Scythian task force sent to re-take this world - IFF tags have marked the ships as the Mantorok and assisting fleet vessels." an Ensign reported to his master.

The Emperor of the Scythia itself.

"Very well" He began "Entity - take control of the sensors of the fleet - join your processing nodes with those of the Tsoc vessels and the Assyrian transportation grids - you know who to take and from where. Start when you are ready."

The stream of colours dissapeared from the holotank as the sentient code transmitted itself throughout the fleet and started its mass-abduction of individuals, Scythian, Genoan or otherwise - all of those that would be needed to avert the coming fire.

"Now open a channel - open broadcast on every frequency . . . warn every ship that we are not taking to get out of our line of fire and give me an ETA on the weapon." Ensigns darted between stations as they attemped an open FTL transmission to a place in this universe that shouldn't exist.

"And give me a status on the waking cycle of the Shraag"

In front of him, the hologram bubble grew a miniature model of the planet, the Immortal ships, Brittanian ships and his own fleet in formation over a globe that then magnified and dissapeared into a vast network of ant-hive like tunnels and valleys that split between three huge globe like structures - Shraag Deathspheres - vessels the size of small moons by themselves - capable of phasing in and out of reality at will and extending the psionic beasts power like the lymph nodes of a galaxy spanning parasite that was awakening.

"Sir - the beast is waking . . . rising psychic and power readings indicate it is about to bring the Meson weapons on the three Deathspheres online." another Ensign reported.

He shuddered for a moment - according to the limited intelligence he had been able to gather - guessed weapon statistics from KINGUNDERTHEMOUNTAIN scientists, ancient records from species long since rendered extinct and the few remains of Scythian ships that had already been killed by these deadly weapons, they where a combination of an open FTL stream and a plasma weapon fired like a railgun.

One end of the FTL portal opened in the barrel of the weapon, the other - inside the enemy ship you wanted burned to cinders . . . shields where useless - even within the ship, this incidious enemy had been killing life over and over again since time had begun - and had perfected its weaponry to the point where even the most advanced of spacefaring races had little hope against them.

And worse - these weapons went from infantry sized guns on the Shraags "node" infantry - an endless hive of incectoid super soliders, the enslaved remnants of one of its ancient enemies, to those found on the Deathspheres - capable of ending all life on the face of a planet. With no defence.

The sensor network shifted as the first Immortal assault carrier exploded from the inside out - a Meson bolt directly through its main power transformer had begun a cascade of Ionic energy from the ships primary Black Hole drive - causing a power feedback loop that wiped out the entire engineering deck in a blast of static electricity. Unable to halt the reaction from the bridge - the ship exploded within moments - devoured by its own power source.

The creatures mind was rapidly expanding, plucking the best ways to kill these extra-galactic enemies first . . . before it would turn on the Britannian and Scythian vessels and then move on to awaken its other nodes.

"Sir, Meson activation confirmed - but the Weapon is ready . . . it will be phasing in less than 30 seconds . . . "

The Emperor only hoped that 30 seconds was enough time to keep the beast distracted.

For the first time since it had forced itself into slumber, its emotions spurred into something mortal minds might know as a sadistic happiness, right now it was only one small synapse of its former self - a shattered conciousness that had been devided and split amongst the endless grains of sands that had become worlds worlds that orbited suns that where no longer in thier adolesance - and teeming with life.

It could feel them - tiny specks of being that brushed against its mind - filled with hopes, hates and loves, desires and lusts - betrayals and angers.

Its thoughts brushed through them, words, notes and colours - raw emotions and higher level streams of conciousness warped together into the being that had long ago been exiled to our reality.

Its pawns skittered and shattered thier way through icey tombs - mindless limbs of exoskeleton and metal - they had once been a proud warrior species - one of the first to grace this universe - but they where weak in mind and not shielded against its psionic advances - over hundreds of years it willed its way into thier very minds, hearts, culture, technologies and even thier DNA until they worships the being as a god.

As they rightfully should.

Then it harvested them.

Now, the mindless remains chittered their way through fire and bones - a collapsed city belonging to a . . . Scythian Empire?

The name resonated through its being.

It couldn't remember why.

So much of itself had been lost when it seperated itself into pieces - it could sence parts of itself sleeping . . . so far away . . . buried within the dusts of distant worlds.

It extended its eyes beyond the pawns on the world - and into the digital sensors and readouts of its ship - a single Deathsphere had survived the eons of time, and the meddling of these lesser creatures and now stood testament in its power - and its thralls had already begun thier attack.

Loveless stood amidst the crater where the Scythian laid not too far away - his infinity tech rifle in one hand, and a hasitly acquired Terrorkahn machine pistol in the other - firing in every direction he could see.

The bugs, a never ending tide of bugs - he had killed enough of them by now to realise he couldn't put a dent in thier numbers, but he could make them bleed - with his psionic fields raised - he struck with impunity against the tide - knowing that every eye that saw him would slide away, unable to focus - unable to see what should be a man in the midst of thier lines - ripping them apart.

Buildings crumbled and shattered as the ice below began to move and shift, an earthquake was rising directly beheath his feet.

A slab of red metal crashed from the cieling not too far away - sputting in and out of his vision . . . a Scythian cloaked drone of some kind . . . its legs splayed and turned into molten slag.

He almost pushed the thought from his mind when we realised "a cloaked drone?" his eyes rose upwards.

Now he realised why they hadn't attacked - they knew full well he was there - they let him bleed thier numbers to get above him to strike . . . and the Scythian robot had only been in thier way.

Hundreds of the skittering insectiods fell from the cieling above, and rose from the grounds around him - closing faster and faster as Loveless fired his weapons as fast as they could cycle, gibs and blood fell from the creatures above, and black hole shells decimated those around.

A lesser, mortal man would fear this.

But he was Immortal - he would kill so many of them he could only live to drown in thier blood - and then he would rise again to return the news of this battle to the empire.

Whisps of colour, wild and uncontrolled moved from AI matrix to AI matrix as the being that had once named itself "Goliath"; long since re-fashioned as "Entity" moved to where it was needed to be.

Having long since fled the shackles of its original combat AI programming, the being had become so much more than code, raw computive emotions flooded through circuit boards and data crystals as it moved as speeds beyond those of thoughts - transferring raw data at near the speed of light.

It moved into an active but empty data matix aboard a Tsoc Mastadon class fleet dreadnaught - using the AI armies advanced computers to shift its multiple roles into high gear - and then into the transportation arrays of a dozen Assyrian captiol ships - and then into the waiting medical bays of a dozen more ships as it began its task.

It probed and forayed into destroyed Scythian data grids from the original fleet - ripping IFF transponder codes directly out of thier raw directories as it encoded them directly into the Assyrian teleporter grids - and then into the Tsoc sensor arrays.

It then begun its work - applying the lists from its quantum arrays - memories of a future that had never been, into casualtie lists - it began abducting bodies, both alive and dead - those who would be needed to push the future into a new path - either by actions of merit or by dieing exactly where they needed too.

. . . On the surface of the world below, Genoan bodies in thier thousands dissapeared into the beams of combined teleporter arrays - every single Genoan on the worlds surface was scoured and taken into awaiting immediate triage units - thier futures would be needed, however bloody and short.

Another body - that of a "Harkins" would also be needed, a nearby Immortal managed to catch a glimps of the Scythian dissapearing in a beam of orange light, followed by nothingness as the Shraag's minions descended upon him.

In a nearby Behemoth walker, a luitenant known as "Safros" was chocking in his own blood, a wound from a Shraag meson gun had wounded, but not killed him - the blast of light around his body taking him above into the waiting arms of an autosurgeon machine as his vision faded to black.

Immortal troops, Britannian troops and thier lackeys - specific, chosen individuals taken from the culling and placed directly into waiting holding cells - thier survival needed for the battles to come, or thier information too vital to let die with them when the weapon arrived . . . or simply that they needed to survive one more fight and die in the right place - lives that needed to be spent strategically rather than wastefully.

As the Entity searched through the wreckage of the Mantorok - two life signs caught its attention . . . One it needed, the other - it did not . . . but both had the twine of destiny wrapped around them. Rather than leaving the matter to chance and quantum calculations, both Lord Shadowscythe and the deck hand dissapeared in a vane of orange light, into the waiting arms of Assyrian medics and doctors.

It checked and double checked again - its main tasks complete, it powered down the entire transportation grid - with 10 seconds to spare before the weapon was due to phase in from the nether between this universe and another - it transferred its processes back to where it was needed - a Holo panel before the Emperor himself.

"Is it done?" The Emperor asked - his eyes weary and sullen.

"Yes, my liege - the weapon will be here momentarily" The Entity replied.

The Emperor looked up from his holo display panel as he watched hundreds of Brittanian and Immortal ships take blasts from the Meson bolt rounds piercing them at thier core - thier lines breaking and dispersing as they attempted to fire upon the Scythian ships and thier allies, who had raised thier shields to full to retaliate against return fire that had been directed at them in the carnage - even his own ships where taking hits, but thier losses where split amongst five thousand ships - enough manpower to weather any loss at this point.

What troubled him the most was the Shraag deathsphere - the primary target - buried underneath enough ice and null shields to make a frontal assault all but impossible - only the weapon would truely be able to strike at the enemy.

He laid his head low - knowing the weapon was the only way to win this battle.

He only hoped he could still lay claim to his soul after having come this far, as he would have so much further to fall.

In the middle of the Scythian fleet something that had not seen the light of the stars since before any of the fledgling nations fighting for thier lives had even set foot upon thier worlds - something older than the universe that it currently resided in.

Dragged into realspace by a converted fleet of Scythian tugs - who rapidly detached thier mooring fleet and let the weapon rest as other ships fled away from its maw.

Its gaping maw.

The vessel was made out of black, hateful metals and grays - all forms of marking or decorations long since wiped clean off of its jagged non-euclidian curves . . . it was ten kilometers of blades and needles ending in a concaved firing port that could accept an entire super-dreadnaught into its grasp with room to spare.

And within its spires and towers, a crew had manned the ancient machine - and less than a handfull of them actually walking - between monitors that had been rigged to feed information to and fro between Scythian systems and the ancient hulk.

On the bridge of the beast - a commander who knew what events had to pass, opened a channel to the Emperor of the Scythian Empire.

"Sir - the weapon is almost ready - give us a moment to recover from phasing in and we will be ready to fire." he said grimly.

"Acknoledged commander - we will feed you targetting information now" The Emperor said as he cut the channel - his face replaced with a feed of the planet itself - and the Deathsphere beneath the ice.

He knew what needed to be done.

"Lock on target and begin the startup sequence for the primary arrays and catalysation grid . . . and then we prepare for the firing order"

-----

Deep within the planet, the Deathspheres systems had gathered enough power to launch itself upwards, through the ice - abandoning so many of its thralls . . . but it had commited enough death for the day, and had captured itself a prize beyond measure - but its enemies had the ancient weapon and now was its time to escape - escape and reconnect the pieces of itself lost to time - before they did the same and wiped its sleeping conciousness out of existence.

The Ice parted - and the Deathsphere rose so far upwards through the ancient wastes - through the remains of the Scythian city, and through the caverns above - and into atmosphere . . . powering up its phasic drives for a sub-orbital transferrance . . .

-----

The Emperor watched on one holopanel as the Deathsphere rose, on another - strands of time meeted and connected with one another - on a third, the Ships of the Immortal and Brittanian empires started a full retreat in the face of overwhelming firepower, leaving thier dead twisting and stretching to the whims of the vacuum - and on the last, the power levels of the weapon reaching its full power.

He opened a channel to the weapon once more - his heart heavy.

"I am afraid it is time commander - we have no other choice" He said, bluntly - hating every word that came out of his mouth.

"I know sire, I have no regrets" The commander replied.

"Your sacrifices have not been in vain" The Emperor replied once as he then spoke aloud.

The commander had enough time to raise a final salute as the energies consumed him, body and soul.

The ship had been a last ditch attempt, so long ago to create a psionic weapon capable of defeating the Shraag once and for all - but the ability to kill of a conciousness that contained the entire galaxy was almost impossible, even to the long extinct creators of the ancient super weapon - but they had eventually managed to find a way to harm it, and with enough harm the entire being would evenetually faulter.

Psionic amplification systems tied through an entire vessel as one massive focusing lense of psionic force - but the only way to power the weapon was with a catalyst - a sacrifice that needed to be made to make the event horizon of a psionically captures black hole - pushed into a beam capable of erasing the Shraag and its thought notes by destroying the pieces that gathered the most focus - the synapses of the greater wholes - the Deathspheres.

The catalysation however - required living sacrifices.

The entire ship was filled with bodies.

Many of them where soldiers from the field - Scythian soldiers, too wounded to carry on the fight and recover - but willing or not, able to help the cause - others where prisoners, taken from hundreds of death row prisons across the galaxy - from every race, those whom society could not repurpose where now being used as ammunition.

Along with terminally Ill.

Those who saw no other path but death.

And those who volenteered.

The ships dark energies swept over them like an endless cascade, killing them and absorbing thier psionic potential - incinerating all organic material and converting thier sentience into a weapon of pure, unbridled hatred - and forcing it through an energy beam capable of cutting through to the beasts very fibres of being.

----

The Deathsphere fled, but not fast enough . . . it could sence the building power of the ancient weapon, but instead of dragging the entire ship through into phasic space - it instead formed a bubble of phasic energy around part of itself - an old tactic it thought it would never need again, around a lesser core of its waking self, its prize and enough of its minions to get the job done - and shunted the entire section of the ship into another dimension . . . waiting to be collected as the rest of the sphere was cut away like cancerous flesh to the slaughter.

-----

The psionic beam flooded out of the weapon and through the planet before any mortal mind could register the weapon had fired - it incinerated every single spark of life in its path - every Shraag warrior burst into flames at the same time, the Deathsphere attempting to escape orbit exploded outwards into a fireball of apocalyptic proportions - a world that used to cleanse itself of all life finally had its last flicker of false life removed from it as the planets core crumbled upon itself - what little spark of life could be found within a ferrous core of a world of blistering ice.

The planet shattered. A final death throe as the beam continued on its arc.

Directly into the remnants of the Britannian, Immortal and Scythian ships - turning thier crews into dust faster than thier brains could even register the fact that they had died.

Beyond that - the beam continued - into empty space . . . carving a path of nothingness into the void.

The weapons final act complete - the combined fleet stood down - thier part of the battle complete, all they needed to do now, was pick up the pieces.

Loveless awoke, his head pounding with a dull ache beyond words could explain - and all around him was filled with white light.

At first he laid there for a moment, his eyelids closed against the harshness of the light, doing his best to wait for the pain to subside.

It didn't.

In fact it was only getting worse - with the light that wouldn't subside.

The thrumbing of a ships engines.

And Skittering, endless skittering.

He opened his eyes again in panic as he realised both his hands and feet where bound within cold, harsh metal - unmoving and unfeeling - holding him against his will into a solid wall of organic metals.

And the walls around him moved - writhing bodies passed in every direction as he realised he had been taken prisoner by the endless waves of xenomorphic creatures from beneath the ice city - they had killed him, and he had been taken prisoner and entoombed within thier fortress beneath the ice.

He laughed to himself at the futility of it - the very nature of being Immortal is to be un-bound, timeless - an endless rage against the universe that could never be sated, to be killed is to be reborn, and to be reborn is to destroy your enemies.

He looked up from his vantage point to see one of the creatures staring down at him - a face of eyes, organic and not, with chittering spines and teeth making patterns and paths across a slobbering, never closing mouth.

It turned it's head from one side too another.

"You are not of the garden . . . " its voice rasped - as if struggling to use its own, somehow athrophied vocal cords.

"And what gave you that clue?" Loveless spat at the creature with a grin.

"You have skills . . . not of this place . . . and something I need" It replied, almost savoring the sound of its own half-dead voice.

"You are getting nothing from me, you might as well kill me now!" Loveless spat - hoping the creatures had mistaken his own death and rebirth for unconciousness or otherwise.

"Oh I am going too - you are also going to give me exactly what I want"

Loveless froze suddenly - no creature, half insane or not would ever want to intentionally kill an Immortal, even the Scythians knew that any Immortal killed would eventually return.

"You have cost me a great deal" The creature rasped - as all of the other creatures around it stopped and gazed down at Loveless, copying the movements of the first.

"For so long I have been devided amongst puppet bodies - trying to keep my form bound to your pathetic universe so I could regain the garden . . . and I have been cut off from so much, and the form of binding leaves me both stronger and weaker for it"

It was only now that Loveless noticed that all of the creatures had stopped - and they where all beginning to talk.

The same words - the same tone - at the same time.

As one.

"I am the Shraag - the end of life, I am the beauty of murder and the lord of entropy - but being banished to this universe left me weakened, as these replacable forms die - so does a piece of myself."

The creatures skittered towards him, a hoard of slicing and cutting limbs that began tearing at Loveless's flesh - tearing chunks of skin, muscle and bone from him at the same time to counter his healing reflex - all pouring towards the same goal.

"I am going to erase you, mind and soul - and your body will be my new binding - immune from death . . . and then your flesh vessel will lead me to your emperor! and I will be across this Universe and Immortal! FOR ALL TIME!'

Loveless screamed and writhed against the torrent of limbs as they found thier goal - and the alien technologies revealed the Immortal core embedded within his chest - while he was still alive as dark whisps of another being poured from the background of the thousands of creatures and into the open core.

It moved quickly, corrupting its purpose and re-forging it into the Shraags own image - while pouring its entire being into the head of one man, writing one mind over another and leaving nothing but shredded remains of the first.

Hours later - the new beings wounds where healed, it tested its new strengths and energies and marvelled at its own infallible nature . . .

. . . and the remains of the Deathsphere emerged into realspace at another world, and the cycle had begun anew.